By partnering with Marketing, the two teams can proactively manage the end-to-end customer lifetime experience by following a need-match-engagement model around target buyer outcomes.

FORBES: Customers Don't Read the Yellow Pages Anymore

Wawa, a regional chain of six hundred convenience stores known for its near cult-like customer following, screens potential store managers fiercely against two values: Delight Customers and Value People.

FORBES: How About Some 'Happy' With That Happy Meal?

And in some cases a bank decides on its own to hold on to a transfer in the hope of getting a better foreign-exchange rate for the customer the following day, or in order to batch it with other transfers and so lower its costs.

ECONOMIST: Banking

By supplying algorithms to balance all the variables of a supply chain, such as product prices, stock levels and customer demand, they are following in the footsteps of i2, the market leader in supply-chain management.

ECONOMIST: Chain reaction

Starbucks chose a new chief executive following a comparatively poor year during which it reported its first-ever drop in customer transactions and saw its share price fall by 42%.

ECONOMIST: Business this week